Breathing in the fresh sea air is one of the many reasons people choose to take cruise holidays.
But a German environmental group claims that cruise passengers are at grave risk of inhaling poisonous fumes from the ship’s engines.
Naturschutzbund Deutschland reportedly found that passengers could be inhaling “60 times higher concentrations of harmful air pollutants” than they would in natural air settings.
There are claims that inhaling these ultra-fine particles can lead to lung diseases, heart attacks and strokes. The German Lung Association has warned passengers not to stay on deck if they suffer from lung diseases.
However, Helge Grammerstorf, the German national director of the Cruise Lines International Association and a former ship captain, said the study was invalid and called for a more systematic test conducted over a longer period of time.
“The claim is completely unsubstantiated,” he told a German newspaper.
